


Child Guardians

by Kayasurin



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Gen, How does this happen to him?, Jack is responsible adult, North's fault, There is de-aging
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-03
Updated: 2014-11-03
Packaged: 2018-02-23 22:28:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2557991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kayasurin/pseuds/Kayasurin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Needless to say, Jack is banning all experimental snow globes from here on out.<br/>Until then, he's going to change the diapers, break up the fights, and quietly have a nervous breakdown, m'kay?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Child Guardians

Next time North suggested they help him test his snow globes, Jack was dumping an avalanche on him.

Jack swallowed down an unmanly screech, and grabbed for the reins. The reindeer fought him, as he steered them around the jutting cliff of wherever-they-were and down towards the ground. It was like they'd forgotten their training or something! Or they were just spooked by the entirely weird portal. Jack bared his teeth and flexed his muscles and it was partially due to him that they landed safely. You know, he'd been steering, after all.

That was pretty important, right?

Never mind, the important thing was that the sleigh was down, and stopped, and Jack could figure out where the _heck_ North had gone...

Jack stared down at the dirty little boy beside him in the driver's seat. The dirty little boy sneered back, his expression defiant but his gaze worried. If Jack tilted his head and squinted - which got him a confused look, which at least was better than the worry - he could see the resemblance to North. Or, well, the resemblance to the old, _old_ picture North kept tucked away in his office. Black hair, bright blue eyes, kind of solid in the husky-Russkie kind of way. The picture-North looked like - well, like the kid did, and also like Jack's North, who was old and white haired and kind of paunchy.

This kid... He had the black hair and the blue eyes, and managed to be both scrawny and solid at the same time. Good bones, and an already solid frame, but he hadn't been fed enough for... years, at least. He was all over dirt, too, which was weird because he was dressed in North's oversized clothing, and the clothes at least were clean. Unless... Jack leaned in closer to study the kid. Okay, not dirt. Oily hair, sure, but those were bruises.

Jack suppressed the urge to find the people responsible and freeze their balls off. This was - somehow, someway, God help him - North. Turned... what, ten? Eleven?

"Вы! Что вы сделали? Отведи меня домой! Или истреблю с ноги в коленях!"

Jack narrowed his eyes. Russian. He got... something about his knees? "Тишина!"

Child-North glared, and swung a fist at Jack's shoulder, yelling far too quickly for the winter spirit to make out individual words, let alone understand any of it. Jack caught that fist in one hand, then the other, and absently noticed that North had really little hands as a kid. "Прекрати это."

At that, Child-North stopped struggling, and - yup, that was definitely fear in his eyes. Jack sighed and hung his head. Whoops. He definitely didn't mean to frighten him... "Wish you spoke English, kiddo. I've used up my Russian."

"E... Engish?" Child-North said, stammering a bit. Heavy accent, really heavy, and not exactly Russian... Close, though, but now that Jack thought about it, the Russian North had been spouting had been - same pronunciation, but different emphasis on various syllables. So... Prussian? Or - no, wait, Bunny called North an 'old Cossack' so maybe Cossack? Cossacks were Russian, weren't they?

Oh, that was just too complicated for him right now. "English," he agreed. "You speak it?"

North furrowed his eyebrows, and scrunched up his nose. "Leetle," he said, finally. "You hands free, yes?"

Hm? Oh, let go of his hands. "No hitting." Jack let go first one tiny fist, and then the other. North shook his hands out, and nodded.

Great. North was a kid. Stupid portal. And why hadn't any of the others...?

He twisted around and looked into the back... and nearly had a heart attack.

A young girl, Indian by the look of her, with blue-green feathers instead of hair, looked back. And smiled.

"Hi! You have pretty teeth!"

At that point, the two toddlers in the back seat began to cry. Baby-Sandy (Oh, God, help him now, this was his hour of _need_ ) cried silently, but Baby-Bunny more than made up for it. His cries were high, piercing, and Jack was pretty sure the two toddlers needed diapers.

He looked down at the floor of the sleigh. Yellowish puddle of liquid... Yup. Diapers.

"Oh, God," Jack mumbled, and thumped his head down on the back of the front seat.

And promptly got a splinter to the eyebrow.

* * *

Phil set a large stein of some amber colored liquid in front of Jack. A quick sniff proved it was a Jägerbomb, made with good, German Jägermeister and a shot of whiskey. Kind of backwards, but Jack preferred drinking his father's preferred mix to any new fashioned stuff the bars were coming out with. And, heck, his liver could handle it, he'd been raised on malted beer and his Granny's 'cider', which, no. Cider did not turn to fumes in your mouth, that stuff had _not_ been cider.

"Thanks," Jack said, and downed a third of the stein in one long swig. Oh, that felt good. It'd feel better when the day's events turned fuzzy and he could put good effort into pretending none of this had happened.

Jack had gotten the sleigh up in the air, and found a normal snow globe for a portal back to the North Pole. That had gotten enthusiastic receptions from Child-North and Child-Tooth. Baby-Bunny and Baby-Sandy had just cried harder, which, yeah. Jack didn't like portals either. That one book series described it right; a meat hook grabbing the back of your nose and yanking you backwards through a straw.

Once they'd arrived at the North Pole, the yeti had come out in force - Jack hadn't trusted his skills in parking the sleigh in the stable, so he'd pulled up in front - and that was when Child-North had gone on the attack. Thankfully the yeti were pretty tough, and Child-North had barely reached mid-thigh on them, and as for elves, well, they were hardy little things. Jack had considered hauling Child-North back, but he'd been burdened with two infants, one shedding sand and the other in desperate need of a bath. Oh, and Child-Tooth - who had to be seven or eight years old, if that - had been following him around like a little duckling, chattering in a mix of perfect English and what he figured was Hindustani about something to do with teeth, if he knew Tooth.

Phil had hurried up, Child-North held at arm's length by the collar, and done a double take at Jack.

Then, Phil had shown just why he was North's second-in-command. He'd chivvied Jack and his entourage into the Workshop, corralled Child-Tooth when she'd looked ready to go chasing an elf-manned toy airplane, kept hold of Child-North despite his squirming, and got them into a large, comfortable room that these days would've been called a living room. Jack was fairly certain it was paradise. Phil had dropped Child-North onto one of the cushy chairs, stepped out for a minute, and when he returned more yeti, these ones wearing the kitchen uniform, came in bearing food.

Phil had motioned that he'd watch the two older Child-Guardians, and sooth Sandy as well, if Jack wanted to get Baby-Bunny settled. Which, yes, he did. It couldn't have been comfortable, soaked in his own urine. And Jack needed a new shirt, 'cause soaked fur had been partially dried by his now wet sweater.

So there was that. Jack was given a new sweater, one sized for North and so all but falling off him, once he'd cleaned Baby-Bunny up. The now-little guy looked very strange in a diaper, and weighing all of ten pounds or so. He had very big eyes, like, taking up half his face it seemed like, and big ears that flopped over from their own weight, and was already crawling.

Of course, Jack didn't learn that last part until he'd set Baby-Bunny down on the floor for a minute so he could get into the tent that was, presumably, a sweater. Once he'd managed to get his head through the neck hole, he'd turned around, only to find Baby-Bunny peering into the mysteries of the toilet instead of lying on the floor where Jack had left him.

Meal time had turned into even more of an adventure. Child-North had no manners, and ate so quickly he was at risk of choking. Child-Tooth was a picky eater; she'd eat anything on her plate, but none of it could be touching or she started whining and getting all shrill. Baby-Sandy didn't eat at all, or nurse from a bottle, or _anything_. And Baby-Bunny didn't want to eat his mashed peas, his mashed squash, his mashed carrots, or even the scrambled eggs Jack tried in desperation. No, he wanted to eat Jack's pork chop. Even though Bunny - as an adult - had mentioned, once, that his intolerance for meat was on par with Caleb's intolerance for nuts; which was to say, potentially _life threatening_.

Once the battle of feeding everyone was over, Jack had discovered a new problem. The two older children needed baths, Baby-Bunny needed another diaper change, and Baby-Sandy was floating.

Jack could only stop and boggle at Sandy. He was floating happily, cooing (probably?) silently and waving his tiny arms at the moon, just visible over the horizon. Streamers of bright gold sand drifted through the closed window, heading out into the night.

Even as an infant, Sandy was doing his job. He had to grin at that.

"Phil, can you watch Sandy while I take care of these guys?" he asked.

Phil had grumbled agreement, and Jack had herded the children into the oversized washroom.

Whereupon he'd hit another snag. North did not want to take a bath. Tooth did, but only if no 'boys' were in the room with her. And Baby-Bunny had started wailing over his wet diaper.

Jack had frozen the bathroom door shut, just so he didn't have to worry about escapees, and got Bunny's diaper problem sorted. Then he'd put Baby-Bunny down onto the floor, hedging him around in a circle of thick hoar frost. Bunny seemed reluctant to cross the frost circle; he kept putting one - hand? Paw? He had fingers, Jack was going with hand until corrected otherwise - down on the ice, then pulling away and making a face. He crawled around the circle, looking exactly like an oversized pet rabbit - albeit one with a diaper - although pet rabbits didn't babble nonsense like human toddlers.

Then Jack ran warm water into the tub, and added bubble bath. He'd told Tooth that she was going to take a bath, he was going to stay in the room to make sure nothing bad happened, and the bubbles would hide anything she wanted hidden. No arguments.

She'd looked equally ready to cry, and kick his shin. She'd settled for neither, but he had a feeling it'd been a near thing.

Of course, once Tooth got in the tub, she stopped caring that she wasn't alone in the bathroom. Jack had washed her back, and then, after he'd dried his hands, carefully preened her feathers. Tooth had giggled at the preening, splashed him, and then thrown a proper fit when he'd insisted she take a quick shower to get the bubbles off and then get out of the tub.

"No! I don't want to! The water's warm and comfy and you're a big mean stupid-head!"

Jack had frowned, and then touched the water with one hand. He couldn't freeze it - his staff was propped up in one corner - but he did drop the temperature from comfortingly warm to just under lukewarm.

"If you stay in the tub too long," Jack had said, speaking over her yelp, "the water gets cold. See? Now come on, let's get the bubbles off, you don't want the soap to dry on your skin, it'll itch. Here we go..."

He'd gotten Tooth out of the bath and into the shower stall with a minimum of dripping, and to make up for the cold bathwater he made sure the shower was nice and warm.

"Can I sing?" Tooth asked, hearing the way her voice echoed.

"Uh..."

She'd started singing before he could answer, some tune that sounded rather odd to his American-adjusted ears. It wasn't just the language, but the odd tonal quality of the song.

Jack let her sing for a few minutes, and then chivied her out of the stall and into a towel. Once dry, there was another of North's oversized sweaters for her to wear, as a nightgown.

"It's really ugly," she said, sounding delighted instead of repulsed.

"Yeah, it kind of is." Dancing, nearly neon-green reindeer on a bright orange background... Sometimes he wondered if North was colorblind. It'd explain a lot.

"Watch Bunny?" Jack asked, and pointed her towards the baby Pooka. Tooth nodded, and dropped down to the floor and started chattering enthusiastically at the oblivious rabbit. Jack drained the tub and got more bubble bath.

Getting North into the bath was a battle from start to finish. He kicked and punched while Jack stripped him of his clothes - or what clothes remained, considering Adult-North's clothing had fallen off his child-self, it seemed - and screamed with what sounded like pure rage when Jack dropped him in the tub. He only quieted when Jack washed the kid's hair, and that was because he was trying to bite Jack's hands and wrists.

When he'd been scrubbed clean, he went back to kicking and punching when Jack hauled him from the tub to the shower stall. He clawed, and tried to gouge Jack's eyes. He only calmed when Jack finished toweling him off and got another ugly sweater on him.

Child-North sniffled, and rubbed the back of his hand over his cheeks. "That's it?"

"That's it," Jack had said. "Except it's time to brush your teeth."

"Teeth!" Child-Tooth jumped up, and clapped her hands. "I like teeth!"

"Toothbrushes," Jack said, and rummaged through the drawers until he found two new ones, and tubes of toothpaste. Tooth seemed to know exactly what to do, while North put the toothpaste on the wrong side of the brush. Jack chose not to comment, and instead picked up Baby-Bunny and held him close.

Once the kids had brushed their teeth - North took one minute, Tooth almost hit ten minutes before he called a stop to the activity - he chivied them back out to the comfortable sitting room. Phil had Baby-Sandy in his arms, and he all but thrust the little guy at Jack, then turned and led the way down the hall to what looked like a hastily cleared room. There were three proper beds, one decorated with rocket ships, the other with fairies and unicorns, while the third had neutral sheets in plain blue. There were two cribs, one much closer to the window than the other.

Jack had gotten the four child-Guardians tucked away in bed, before he'd headed back out to the sitting room, whereupon Phil had plied him with alcohol.

Jack finished off his stein, and held it out to Phil. "Another?" he asked.

Phil grumbled, but shambled off to get Jack the second Jägerbomb.

* * *

"Hiiiiii!"

"Nyaaaaah!"

Baby-Bunny started to wail.

What a _wonderful_ way to wake up of a morning.

Jack pushed Tooth off his stomach, and gingerly sat up. Ouch. Just... ouch. Being a spirit meant he was a bit more durable than a human, but there were limits, and his limits were _just_ this side of having two bony knees slam into his pancreas.

"Mr. Jack! Mr. Jack!" Tooth beamed at him. "Good morning! Mr. Jack there's breakfast!" She paused, and added somewhat doubtfully, "and Nicky's under the bed hunting for monsters. I think."

Oh, God, it hadn't been a dream. They were all... Jack groaned, and staggered into quasi-wakefulness. First things first. The babies.

"North can hunt monsters if he wants," he mumbled, and stumbled over to the cribs. Baby-Sandy was awake, and looking annoyed at Baby-Bunny's wails. Fair enough. Baby-Bunny needed... another diaper change. Great.

Jack groaned, and hefted Baby-Bunny into his arms. "North!" he called. "If you're looking for monsters you don't get fed!"

North popped out from under his bed so fast, Jack half expected to see a vapor trail behind him. "Why? Why no food if monster hunt be?"

"Because monsters aren't allowed at the dinner table. And either you're hunting or you're eating. Come on." Jack looked down at Baby-Bunny, then scooped Baby-Sandy up in his other arm. "Let's go eat."

It wasn't that simple, of course. He left the three children with Phil, whereupon they were presented with everything from sugary cereal to bacon and eggs, to kippers, to oatmeal, to pancakes, to... stuff he didn't recognize and was pretty sure he didn't want to.

Jack made a brief detour to change Baby-Bunny's diaper, which was harder than it'd been yesterday. Bunny was flexible and occasionally hyperactive as an adult, but as a baby he was a squirmy little wriggler who apparently hated diapers. Jack persevered, however, and gave a quick mental thanks that the diapers weren't the plastic-and-tape nonsense people in this current day and age thought so necessary. Enough layers of cloth kept just about anything from soaking all the way through, it was easier on a baby's bottom- and stomach, back, hips, thighs, and everything in between- and hey, reusable. Just dump any solid mess into the toilet, leave the dirty cloth soaking in cold, running water, then put it through the wash and voila. Good as new again.

Besides, Jack didn't know how to put on the new diapers without somehow getting the tape stuck to his own hair and the diaper nowhere near close to a baby's bottom. His babysitting attempts for Jamie's kids had been... adventurous, and thankfully Jamie and his wife, Elizabeth-call-me-Lizzie had been amused when they'd come home from their movie.

They also hadn't asked Jack to babysit again. At least not until little David was toilet trained.

Once Baby-Bunny was safely covered up against accidents, Jack carried him back out and sat down to his delayed breakfast. He got a large helping of scrambled eggs with different kind of peppers, a bowl of oatmeal garnished with raisons, and a small stack of toast covered in a thick layer of strawberry preserves. It was more than he usually ate, but for some reason he was feeling exceptionally hungry today.

For Baby-Bunny, he got a small bowl of regular scrambled eggs, and then one of the kitchen workers brought out a bowl of strained peas, which Jack had always thought was some kind of punishment for children. He made a face at the peas, and resolved to leave them for last. Baby-Bunny would probably be too full to eat anymore after the eggs.

He checked on the other children. Baby-Sandy was floating again, apparently uninterested in food, while Tooth ate daintily. Apparently having the maple syrup touch her pancakes was acceptable, although she'd made clear space between the cut up pancakes and the scrambled eggs. North, for his part, had piled a lot of food on his plate, and was hunched over it, one arm curled around as though to protect it. He ate quickly, shoveling it in. He'd chosen a meal heavy on the meat; a full rasher of bacon - a rasher was twelve strips, right? - a bit of breakfast ham, even kippers, alongside eggs both fried and scrambled, and the half-expected pancakes. Jack had yet to meet a child who turned down pancakes.

Well, those three were fine. He turned his attention to feeding Bunny, and himself.

Easier said than done. Bunny fussed when Jack tried to feed him the plain eggs, and then made grabby hands at anything Jack tried to eat. After the fifth time a certain toddler pawed at his toast, Jack decided to try an experiment. He broke off a bit of the toast, an inner bit instead of along the crust, and gave it to Bunny.

The Pooka's delight was obvious. And loud. He made noises that, really, could only be described as 'nom-nom'. And then he pawed at Jack's chin, apparently asking for more.

Jack sighed, and gave in to the inevitable. He was going to share his breakfast. Huzzah. At least there was a lot of it.

Bunny loved the toast with jam, enjoyed the eggs - although he made interesting faces when he got a yellow pepper, he chewed with infantile determination and then opened his mouth for more - and was utterly indifferent to oatmeal and raisons both. He got full long before any serious inroads had been made in the food - by him. Jack, on the other hand, had plowed through his breakfast, interspersing his own meal with the occasional morsel of food for Bunny.

He finished at near about the same time as the two older kids, and retrieved Sandy. Phil showed up with impeccable timing just as they finished, and Jack was able to march them all to the bathroom from before. He looked back once, to see the food left on the table - and there was a lot of it - covered with swarming elves. Well, now he didn't feel guilty about how much had been left over.

The kids needed their hands and faces washed, which... went pretty well, actually. Bunny squirmed, Tooth couldn't stop giggling, and North only tried to bite him once. Sandy floated around the room, looking like he'd been wrapped in a swaddling blanket so only his face and arms were visible.

Once everyone was cleaned up, Jack herded them back out into the hallway, where Phil was waiting.

"Is there anywhere we can stay, out of the way, where the kids won't get into trouble?" Jack asked. "And - we need to figure out what happened and how to fix it."

Phil nodded, and gestured down the hallway. He led the way to a room very near the bedroom, and Jack frowned thoughtfully. He doubted North had rooms prepared for this sort of thing just in case... Were the yeti clearing out rooms and putting in whatever was needed? That made sense.

This room was full of toys; action toys and dolls, rocking horses and wooden train sets. The furniture was all low, child-sized seats and tables, beanbag chairs, and one full sized rocking chair. There weren't any play pens, but there were several chests filled with brightly colored blocks for stacking, and equally bright stuffed animals. The carpet was thick and plush, almost absurdly so. There was one large TV in the back of the room, with several game systems hooked up, and shelf after shelf of video games. Jack sighed with relief. No way were they staying in here forever, but it'd do until the yeti whipped up proper outdoors gear and Jack could safely haul the children outside.

And, in one corner, there was an adult sized table and chair, and the table was already piled high with what looked like magic books.

"Ah, research," he said, and put Bunny and Sandy down near the toddler toys. Bunny seemed most interested in a giant blue rabbit-plush bigger than he was, while Sandy showed no interest in such things and floated over to the window. Streamers of gold sand floated out through the glass.

"Re-sarch what?" North asked. He picked up a toy lightsaber, and nearly dropped it when it turned on. Then, he grinned at the glowing blade, delighted, and swung it several times. The toy apparently was supposed to make noises, because the classic woosh-whirr-buzz filled the air.

Tooth stared at North, eyes very wide. "I want one!" she cried, and immediately searched the room for a lightsaber of her own.

Jack sat down at the adult table, and opened the first book. He'd probably have to read it all the way through, he thought. Since he didn't know what he was looking for.

Ah, well. At least he had the yeti helping him. He'd have gone crazy otherwise.

**Author's Note:**

> I have no better title than this. One-shot because I got nothing more (lies, I have no idea how to get to the more) and because I get this giddy rush posting new stuff. Enjoy.


End file.
